Years of energy equals energy, at last, for Rensselaer plant

By Chris Churchill and Bob Gardinier Staff writers

Published 12:00 am, Friday, October 15, 2010

Operations and Maintenance Manager Darrell Willson outside the Empire Generating Project in Rensselaer is on line, $800 million and several years after it was first proposed. (Michael P. Farrell / Times Union
(Michael P. Farrell)

Operations and Maintenance Manager Darrell Willson outside the...

Lead operator Joe Blair works in the control room at the Empire Generating Project in Rensselaer, which will generate enough power to supply up to 750,000 homes. (Michael P. Farrell / Times Union)

Lead operator Joe Blair works in the control room at the Empire...

Left to right, Plant Manager Sean Spain, CEO Curt Morgan and Rensselaer Mayor Dan Dwyer stand outside the Empire Generating Project in Rensselaer. About 25 people work at the plant, the largest-ever project inn the city. (Michael P. Farrell / Times Union)

RENSSELAER -- This city's long-planned and much-discussed power plant is open and generating electricity.

Getting the plant operational was no easy feat: The $800 million project traveled a lengthy, twisted and strange road -- facing financing difficulties, opposition from city residents and a complex stew of other issues.

Those difficulties were set aside Thursday, when executives from Empire Generating Co., the project's developer and owner, gathered with city and state officials to tout the plant's benefits and possibilities.

The gas-fired power plant, which can generate enough electricity to supply the needs of up to 750,000 homes, was described as a necessary component for regional economic growth. The Port of Rensselaer project was also heralded as an unusually efficient and environmentally friendly generator of electricity.

The plant, which employs 25 people and is able to produce 635 megawatts of power, began feeding the state's electrical grid in September.

"We're running pretty much around the clock and have been since we started," said Curt Morgan, chief executive of Empire Generating, headquartered in New Jersey.

The largest development project in the city's history was mired in controversy for years, even on the morning of June 26, 2000, when the siting of the plant then called Besicorp was first announced at a hastily prepared news conference.

The presser was sent out only two hours before the event, leaving environmentalists who planned on peppering officials with questions in the company of the press out in the cold. A couple of groups had been fighting a similar plan by the company in Ulster County and they accused the company of intentionally withholding news of the announcement to leave them out.

In November of that year, city leaders and residents got their first chance to query developers at a public meeting that did not go well. Most spoke out against the project and did not believe information from the company about tax windfalls, jobs, and environmental impacts.

City elected officials for the most part supported the plan from the beginning.

But Rensselaer County Greens and their spokesman Eric Daillie railed against the project at every city Common Council meeting for several years, which sometimes led to shouting matches between opponents and proponents. Besides the Greens, the Sierra Club and the Citizens Environmental Coalition also denounced the plant regularly at public meetings.

Opponents wanted a plan to better clean up the polluted BASF site where the plant was built. Many said the plant would pollute the city's air and be an eyesore on the Hudson River shoreline.

In July 2003 the state approved a $10 million cleanup plan for the 132-year-old former BASF industrial brownfield site. The German company manufactured artificial dyes and medicines. Bayer bought the company in 1903 and started producing the first "Made in America'' aspirin in Rensselaer.

Environmentalists criticized the plan for not going far enough.

There was also a tug of war between the city and county IDAs for control of the project which led to a council vote against the project in January 2004. That brought a quick rebuke from former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who pushed for the project and the county's involvement.

In May 2004, the city council reversed its former vote against the project after meetings with company officials and state approved the project four months later.